Rose Oil. Julia Lawless
were in fact prepared in a vast and ingenious variety of ways: an ointment of roses was used to soothe headaches; a syrup to ‘comfort the heart’; rose leaves mixed with mint were applied as a poultice to ‘quiet the over-heated spirits’; infusions of rose leaves and petals, or the petals ingested in honey, were employed as a remedy for coughs, while a rose conserve was prescribed for liver complaints. Rose vinegar was recommended for several disorders including nose bleeds, indigestion, headaches and hangovers, while rosewater was used to soothe sore eyes. At one time, the roots of the wild Dog Rose (R. canina) were even used to treat those afflicted by rabies – ‘the bites of mad dogs’. Rose oil also had its uses:
In the Middle Ages, physicians such as Walafried Stabon of Reichenau, Odo of Maine and Arnold of Villanova used rose oil for complaints ranging from infected wounds to diarrhoea. It was also used in various applications as a treatment for heart diseases, having a cardionic effect and reducing heart trembling.4
Nicholas Culpeper, the well-known British herbalist and astrologer writing in the early seventeenth century, dedicated more space to the rose than to any other herb:
Red roses strengthen the heart, the stomach, the liver, and the retentive faculty; they mitigate the pains that arise from heat, cool inflammations, procure rest and sleep, stay both the whites and reds in women … red rosewater is cooling, cordial, refreshing, quickening the weak and faint spirits, used either in meats or broths or to wash the temples, to smell at the nose, or to smell the sweet vapours out of a perfume pot, or cast into a hot fire-shovel. It is of much use against the redness and inflammations of the eyes to bathe therewith and the temples of the head … oil of roses is used to cool hot inflammation or swellings … also put into ointments and plasters that are cooling and binding...5
The Damask Rose, according to Culpeper, was in addition a ‘cephalic’, being uplifting to the mind on account of its fragrance. Gerarde, an early European herbalist (1545–1612) tells us that rosewater ‘bringeth sleep which also the fresh roses themselves provoke through their sweet and pleasant smell’. Robert Lovell, writing later in the seventeenth century, also devoted several pages to the rose, and he too made particular note of the effect of its scent:
Oleum rosarum (the oil of roses) is a good perfume; a drop or two cheres the heart, brain, animal and vitall spirits.6
It is clear that all the old herbalists were in agreement that roses were very valuable medicinal agents – the Gallic Rose especially being highly esteemed for its cooling, astringent, tonic, regulating and revitalizing effects. However, the eighteenth century saw a decline in traditional remedies as belief in a scientific approach to medicine took hold of the public imagination. Chemical drugs replaced the naturally derived herbal ‘simples’ and the medical pharmacopoeias became increasingly filled with synthetically-derived substitutes. Over the following centuries the therapeutic value of the rose was consequently gradually eroded in favour of its perfumery use and purely decorative appeal. It is only in the twentieth century that the traditional therapeutic values of the rose have been reassessed!
The Rose as a Twentieth-Century Remedy
A rose is a rose is a rose …
Gertrude Stein, from ‘I am a Rose’ in Sacred Emily
Despite its rich traditional heritage as a folk remedy, by the beginning of the twentieth century the rose had almost vanished from Western medicine. In 1907, the rose growers of the Provence region in France obtained a government warrent that their unguents derived from roses would be used in all French public and military hospitals. In Britain, however, only the wild or common Dog Rose (R. canina) retained its medicinal uses. During the Second World War, for example, it was common for children to be dosed with rose hip syrup, due to its high vitamin C content. The chopped fruits are also still occasionally used as a folk remedy in the form of a decoction for a variety of disorders:
… two and a half teaspoons finely cut fruit per cup of water, boiled for 10 minutes to achieve optimum vitamin C content, several times a day against constipation, colds, gall disorders, and disorders of the kidneys, and bladder; also as a spring tonic and against general exhaustion.1
Red rose petals from R. gallica were listed in the British Herbal Pharmacopoeia until the 1930s, mainly as a mild astringent and to flavour other medicines. By 1983, however, only the hips of R. canina are mentioned in connection with gastritis, diarrhoea and poldipsia, and as ‘a dietary supplement as a natural source of vitamin C, together with small amounts of A and B vitamins’.2
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